Monday Minute, August 23, 2010

Posted By Michael Fraase
Aug 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome back to campus and to the first Monday Minute of the new academic year.

I recently had a tour of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Innovation and found it extremely gratifying to hear how Mayo has embraced design thinking as central to its future and to the future of healthcare delivery. They have a motto -- Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast -- that has served them well in prototyping everything from new interior environments for staff and patients to new health-related tools and equipment to new procedures in the delivery of services. They want to embed design thinking, creative problem-solving, and entrepreneurial innovation into what every one of their nearly 50,000 employees does everyday.

They also want to find ways to partner with us, so we will schedule time fall semester for members of Mayo's Center for Innovation to meet with us, see what we are doing, and discuss possible joint efforts in the future. I think this offers a terrific opportunity for us to connect to one of the best-known institutions of its kind in the world and to explore the ways in which our various disciplines relate to human health, so be thinking about how your work might intersect with theirs.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the September 17, 2010 symposium, "Making, Selling, Buying, Using: Emerging Issues in Product Design," organized by faculty members Lucy Dunne (Apparel Design) and Steven McCarthy (Graphic Design). Maggie Breslin, a design researcher at Mayo Clinic, is one of the keynote speakers. University students, staff, and faculty attend free. Also, watch for an announcement of the next Design Intersections conference this spring, which will focus on design and healthcare. It's a topic whose time has come.